Thursday, April 28, 2011

There's only seven shopping days left til Mother's Day -- less if, like me, mother lives far away and you can't stop off at a florist's on your way to take her to brunch. If, like me, you've used FTD, the national network of florists, in the past, you're getting daily emailed reminders (and discount offers).

The traditional Buddhist advice is to regard all beings as your mother because, in some life over all the eons, they have been. This, in eastern wisdom, would cause you to treat them with respect and kindness.

Not always so these days. The mother and child reunion is often fraught with tension. But it is also rich in opportunities to practice, to be with joy and sadness at their most intense..

When your kid is hurting – after you’ve cleaned up the blood, wiped the tears, handed over an ice pack, given hugs, given discipline – you come, sooner or later, to the question, is this my fault?

The answer may come quickly: Yes, all of it, or no, none of it.

But that answer is habit. And if you wait, if you watch, you’ll likely discover that the truth is somewhere in the middle.

It’s easy, maybe natural, to want to take it all on yourself. The kid, if biological, has your genetic material, mixed with a partner’s. The kid has grown up with you, absorbing information you didn’t know you were conveying.

And the kid may be more than happy to hand it over -- “if you hadn’t done x, then I wouldn’t have done y,” -- down to the very basic level of “I didn’t ask to be born.” You made that happen. The kid is a part of your karma, and you are a part of hers.

But there are other causes and conditions at play. To take all the blame – or none of it – is to make it about you. And this is not about you.

Stories are no help here, not the ones you read at bedtime, not the ones that shape how you see yourself or how you see him. They may provide familiarity, and that may be comfortable, but that does not change what is happening now. And here, for real, is when being in the present moment, seeing the person in front of you, and sorting out what is happening NOW -- while dropping the stories about what happened when she was 5 or who you thought he would be at 17 -- is what can transform the situation.

Every minute is mindfulness, is awareness, is stepping out of the stream of consciousness and watching the hopes and fears and memories flow by without floating away on them.

What our wounded places most want, John Welwood writes, is for us to be there with them. Welwood is a Buddhist and psychologist who's talking about traumatic experiences that have kept our inner children -- and the adults they become -- locked in samsaric patterns.

But it's true too for our outer children, the ones we gave life to. Sometimes, what they most want and need is a safe place to be sad, to be angry, to be lonely, to be confused. And to know, because you're there with them and you're not running away, that they are OK even if they don't feel that way.

And if you can be there with them and their feelings, holding space, then wisdom may arise and you can act from that instead of acting out old storylines.

To get to the wisdom, you have to marinate first in metta. For yourself, because you deserve kindness as much as anyone. For your child: may you be safe; may you be happy; may you be healthy; may you find ease. Even if you can’t imagine how that will look. You let go of imagining. And then, because everyone is someone’s child, you invite the world into your tender, raw heart, fervently wishing that everyone finds happiness and health, safety, and ease.

Before you know what kindness really isyou must lose things,feel the future dissolve in a momentlike salt in a weakened broth.What you held in your hand,what you counted and carefully saved,all this must go so you knowhow desolate the landscape can bebetween the regions of kindness.How you ride and ridethinking the bus will never stop,the passengers eating maize and chickenwill stare out the window forever.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,you must travel where the Indian in a white poncholies dead by the side of the road.You must see how this could be you,how he too was someonewho journeyed through the night with plansand the simple breath that kept him alive.

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.You must wake up with sorrow.You must speak to it till your voicecatches the thread of all sorrowsand you see the size of the cloth.

Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,only kindness that ties your shoesand sends you out into the day to mail letters andpurchase bread,only kindness that raises its headfrom the crowd of the world to sayit is I you have been looking for,and then goes with you everywherelike a shadow or a friend.

The Art of Disappearing by Naomi Shihab Nye

When they say Don’t I know you?say no.When they invite you to the partyremember what parties are likebefore answering.Someone telling you in a loud voicethey once wrote a poem.Greasy sausage balls on a paper plate.Then reply.If they sayWe should get togethersay why?It’s not that you don’t love them anymore.You’re trying to remember somethingtoo important to forget.Trees.The monastery bell at twilight.Tell them you have a new project.It will never be finished.When someone recognizes you in a grocery storenod briefly and become a cabbage.

When someone you haven’t seen in ten yearsappears at the door,don’t start singing him all your new songs.You will never catch up.Walk around feeling like a leaf.Know you could tumble any second.Then decide what to do with your time.

Monday, April 25, 2011

Cheering up is a strange thing, and hard to do. We usually think we'll cheer up once things get better for ourselves or better in the world. But that's backwards. What really works is cheering up FIRST, before there's a clear reason to. Then things start to feel more fluid, you can deal with what comes and help things get better in the world. Cheering up is how things get better. And if you can cheer up for no reason on a Monday, you're going probably to have a whole week that benefits others. -- Ethan Nichtern

Friday, April 15, 2011

On the cover of her new book, Tina Fey’s intelligent elf face rests in a large masculine hand at the end of a beefy Teamster arm. It’s a wakeup moment, a doubletake – what’s not right with this picture? Fey does that a lot in her work on “30 Rock,” where she holds stereotypes up to show how insubstantial they are, then turns the light on the character who questions the stereotype, revealing the concepts and constructs under THAT view.That’s what I work on a lot in meditation, deconstructing the assumptions and the roles that I think make me “me.” Who can’t take sitting in the posture anymore? Who can’t accept karma? Who wants to question the teacher – the good student, the defiant one, the person who feels defensive and stupid because she doesn’t understand, the one who wants affirmation, the one who really and truly wants to know in order in try out the concept.On the first page of my current journal, started as I began an intense, week-long, silent retreat, I wrote, who am I without my roles? Eight months later, I still wonder.Some roles are easy to discard – wife, mom, for example – because they’re social constructs. “Spouse” and “parent” lie on a deeper level because they have to do with connections with people I care about.One of the most basic identities, it seems to me, is sex/gender. If you ask someone what they are, you can strip off the social roles fairly quickly and even the ethnic or class definitions. For most people, stripping off the man/woman label is a challenge.The New York Times this week had an article about a New Jersey court that’s faced with defining what a man is. El'Jai Devoureau was fired from his job watching men pee into cups for drug testing after his employer learned he had been born a woman. Mr. Devoureau, 39, says he has identified himself as a man all his life, has had sex change surgery, and has a newbirth certificate that identifies him as male, as his New Jersey driver’s license does. The SocialSecurity Administration made the change in its records. He's challenging his firing in court.You could say it’s a matter of equipment, and that determining whether someone is a man or woman is pretty easy. Just look. But that’s sex; gender is something else – it has more to do with your internal self than your physical equipment. And gender can be flexible.This is a true story:A cisman (male sex, male identified – not that there’s anything wrong with that) whose car was stuck in a snow bank in a quaint New England town that had seen way too much snow this winter walks over to a nearby house and knocks on the door. When someone answers he explains his situation and asks: “Are there a couple of males who could help me push it out?”The inhabitants of the house include a transfem, a gender queer, and an assortment of others, some with male parts, some with female ones, but you couldn’t tell which by looking at the selves they show the world. So who goes to help him push the car? One lesbian with a chip on her shoulder, ready to prove that gender has nothing to do with strength.It’s second nature to invoke gender roles, even for people who are mindful in most aspects of life. I’ve been in conversation with a man when another man comes over and asks him for help moving something. I’m tempted to point out that I lift weights three times a week, that I’m taller and maybe heavier than the male they’ve asked for help, and that moving cushions and sweeping the floor is a task not tied to gender. Instead I just ask if I can see if I can be of any help and pitch in.I don’t react with anger. I would have, once upon a time. I react now with curiosity: What is it about this task that requires a male? What do you mean by male? Does pushing the car require a penis? What if the person with a penis is dressed as a woman? Can women be strong? If I’m strong, am I less womanly?Social commentators are all up in arms this week about a J Crew ad featuring resident and creative director Jenna Lyons and her son who's wearing pink Essie nail polish on his toenails.“Lucky for me I ended up with a boy whose favorite color is pink," the ad copy reads. Conservative commentators say she should be putting money aside for therapy because he’ll need it to address his subsequent gender confusion.To paraphrase Sylvia Boorstein, everybody’s confused about something. As Buddhists, we work to clear away the confusion, the labels, the constructs, the things that define us and make us seem solid, and see the clarity and inherent goodness that’s present in everyone and everything. From an absolute view, we are all genders and none.The question is, how does that manifest in the physical world?

Monday, April 11, 2011

It's all good to learn that right outside your window There's only friendly fields and open roadsAnd you'll sleep better when you think You've stepped back from the brinkAnd found some peace inside youself Laid down your heavy loadIt gets all right to dream at night Believe in solid skies and slate blue earth belowBut when you see him you'll know

It's okay to find the faith to saunter forward With no fear of shadows spreading where you standAnd you'll breathe easier just knowing that the worst is all behind you And the waves that tossed the raft all night have set you on dry landIt gets okay to praise the dayBelieve in sheltering skies and stable earth beneath

It's all good to learn that from right here the view goes on foreverAnd you'll never want for comfort and you'll never be aloneSee the sunset turning red let all be quiet in your headAnd look about, all the stars are coming outThey shine like steel swordsWish me well where I goBut when you see me you'll know

Saturday, April 2, 2011

When your kid is hurting – after you’ve cleaned up the blood, wiped the tears, handed over an ice pack, given hugs, given discipline – you come, sooner or later, to the question, is this my fault?

The answer may come quickly: Yes, all of it, or no, none of it.

But that answer is habit. And if you wait, if you watch, you’ll likely discover that the truth is somewhere in the middle.

It’s easy, maybe natural, to want to take it all on yourself. The kid, if biological, has your genetic material, mixed with a partner’s. The kid has grown up with you, absorbing information you didn’t know you were conveying.

And the kid may be more than happy to hand it over -- “if you hadn’t done x, then I wouldn’t have done y,” -- down to the very basic level of “I didn’t ask to be born.” You made that happen. The kid is a part of your karma, and you are a part of hers.

But there are other causes and conditions at play. To take all the blame – or none of it – is to make it about you. And this is not about you.

Stories are no help here, not the ones you read at bedtime, not the ones that shape how you see yourself or how you see him. They may provide familiarity, and that may be comfortable, but that does not change what is happening now. And here, for real, is when being in the present moment, seeing the person in front of you, and sorting out what is happening NOW -- while dropping the stories about what happened when she was 5 or who you thought he would be at 17 -- is what can transform the situation.

Every minute is mindfulness, is awareness, is stepping out of the stream of consciousness and watching the hopes and fears and memories flow by without floating away on them.

What our wounded places most want, John Welwood writes, is for us to be there with them. Welwood is a Buddhist and psychologist who's talking about traumatic experiences that have kept our inner children -- and the adults they become -- locked in samsaric patterns.

But it's true too for our outer children, the ones we gave life to. Sometimes, what they most want and need is a safe place to be sad, to be angry, to be lonely, to be confused. And to know, because you're there with them and you're not running away, that they are OK even if they don't feel that way.

And if you can be there with them and their feelings, holding space, then wisdom may arise and you can act from that instead of acting out old storylines.

To get to the wisdom, you have to marinate first in metta. For yourself, because you deserve kindness as much as anyone. For your child: may you be safe; may you be happy; may you be healthy; may you find ease. Even if you can’t imagine how that will look. You let go of imagining. And then, because everyone is someone’s child, you invite the world into your tender, raw heart, fervently wishing everyone finds happiness and health, safety, and ease.

Kindnessby Naomi Shihab Nye

Before you know what kindness really isyou must lose things,feel the future dissolve in a momentlike salt in a weakened broth.What you held in your hand,what you counted and carefully saved,all this must go so you knowhow desolate the landscape can bebetween the regions of kindness.How you ride and ridethinking the bus will never stop,the passengers eating maize and chickenwill stare out the window forever.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,you must travel where the Indian in a white poncholies dead by the side of the road.You must see how this could be you,how he too was someonewho journeyed through the night with plansand the simple breath that kept him alive.

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.You must wake up with sorrow.You must speak to it till your voicecatches the thread of all sorrowsand you see the size of the cloth.

Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,only kindness that ties your shoesand sends you out into the day to mail letters andpurchase bread,only kindness that raises its headfrom the crowd of the world to sayit is I you have been looking for,and then goes with you everywherelike a shadow or a friend.